Stanford University announced today a new center to support highly accomplished leaders who are mid-career in public or private sector positions and seeking new resources and influences to prepare for their next steps. The Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute (DCI) will offer 20 participants access to faculty and classes in all seven of Stanford’s schools, including the School of Medicine. Additionally, the DCI Fellows will participate in specially designed programs including a core program of weekly seminars and discussions, one-to-two day meetings on key issues, and monthly dinners with faculty scholars and Stanford and Silicon Valley community leaders.

“We know what role universities play in early life and in stimulating the first phase of careers,” said [Pizzo], who returned to teaching in 2012 after serving as dean of Stanford School of Medicine for 12 years. “What is their role in mid- to later-career life transitions and journeys?”

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“Life should be filled with new journeys and new opportunities, and shouldn’t be affixed to traditional stopping points that are no longer relevant,” said Pizzo, who is the David and Susan Heckerman professor of pediatrics, and of microbiology and immunology at Stanford. “We need to recalibrate the way we think about the life journey, and recognize that individuals have different things to offer and to gain at different stages in life.”

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Pizzo said the institute will serve as a transition to new ventures for participants, allowing them to build on their life experiences to create something unique that will improve themselves and the world.

“The new way forward that emerges from participating in the institute can be one long-anticipated and hoped-for, or one not yet imagined,” he said.